


Dancing with the Devil: Interlude

by BleepBleepSheep



Category: Samurai Jack (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 23:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10954839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleepBleepSheep/pseuds/BleepBleepSheep
Summary: This takes place between chapters 17 and 18. Tensions reach a breaking point. Jack struggles with his morality while Aku is actually honest about his own.





	Dancing with the Devil: Interlude

“Why do you resist, samurai?" 

Jack opened his eyes to gaze at Aku who still sat comfortably in his arms, mere inches from the floor. The warrior lowered his gaze to stare at his foe’s loosely tied jacket and inhaled the scents of fresh timber, smoke, and soap from their recently washed sheets. For a moment he found the day and all its revelations and consequences suddenly and agonizingly unbearable. A despairing sense of failure bore down on him as he gazed at the buttons on Aku’s vest. He didn’t want to decide, he didn’t want to think.

The quality of silence changed. Jack drew the wizard up to a standing position and retreated to the other side of the room, face to the wall.

"Because it is the right thing to do,” he said.

Aku laughed derisively and walked unsteadily to the fireplace. His shadow leapt onto the side of the wall and danced with the fire’s light. It wasn’t a man’s shadow.

Jack caught the display out of the corner of his eye and swallowed thickly. The raw weakness unnerved him. He chanced a glimpse over his shoulder as the wizard suddenly collapsed into the chair again, legs stretched limply in parallel to the fireplace. He turned back to the wall and concentrated on its texture, its coldness, its color and design. But the pull to look was irresistible.

“I want this to stop right now, Aku.”

No movement, no sound.

The samurai turned around. “Did you hear me, demon? No more. This is an insult to everything either of us stand for. Do you not see? It is…”

“Stop, samurai." 

Aku raised his hand and made a cutting gesture. The silhouette of his arm looked as thin and feeble as a branch. Jack opened his mouth to refuse, but he couldn’t find the words.

“Come here where I can see you.”

The peculiar mix of authority and resignation drew Jack from his tirade and he gazed warily at the demon’s black silhouette. There was something awful about tonight, a terrible sense of destiny, of irrevocable choice, and suddenly Jack was terrified of himself. Of Aku. Of their weaknesses.

Only when the sudden flare of firelight stung Jack’s eyes did he realize he had walked towards the chair. Angry with himself, the samurai glared down at Aku. The demon sat listless in his seat as if there was not a single bone in his body. Light and shadow shifted on the wizard’s face and contrasted the eerie stillness of his eyes. Eyes that gazed at Jack now, unreadable and appraising.

"Why do you meddle?” The samurai asked, genuinely puzzled. “You are repulsed by this yet you must meddle. Why?”

Aku favored him a faint smile, then stared into the fire. “It is the way of my kind.”

“The way of your kind is the source of all our problems,” Jack retorted. “Perhaps it is time to put those ways to rest." 

Aku dig his fingers into the furniture. It made him look strangely vulnerable. His mouth twitched but he refrained from replying. Instead he forced himself out of his chair and withdrew into the dim recesses of the room where their beds sat dark and empty. The crumple of sheets announced the demon sprawling on the mattress.

Jack exhaled heavily. "Do not pout now that I have breached the truth.”

Aku released a hiss. “I do not pout, samurai. I have hidden nothing from you that must be breached at this very moment.”

“Why did you come to me?” Jack moved back towards the two beds. He gripped his sword as a precaution, uncertain what greeting he would receive. The demon merely spared him a venomous glance.

“You are so certain about my nature, do you not think the opposite is true?”

The samurai sat on his own bed. “You knew I would try to save you.”

“Yes.” The wizard lay limply on his bed, eyes nearly lost to the darkness. “Your greatest weakness is your feelings for others. It is how I will conquer you in the end.”

“You have not conquered me yet.”

“I still need you.”

Jack stiffened but instead of leaping to the challenge, he mirrored his nemesis. “What if you need me later?”

Aku’s lips twitched like he suppressed a smile. “Then, samurai, I suppose it would be too late for either of us, hmm?” His eyes swiveled back to stare at Jack. “Tell me,” his voice regained some of his demonic resonance, “is this desirable to you? Am I?”

Jack blanched. That was answer enough.

The wizard laughed and revealed a mouth full of bone white teeth. “Ha haah! Oh samurai, you do amuse me.” He rolled onto his side so they faced each other. “Why is it that you seek out Aku when you could have countless others?” It sounded too humble, so the demon added, “Not that they can compare.”

“There is no honor in such a thing. I would not wish my life on anyone.”

“Honor, yesss.” Aku’s mouth slowly stretched into a grin. “I saved your life in Brii. You owe me a debt.”

“That is a terrible thing to ask of me.”

“Since when has Aku been anything but terrible?”

“Do not toy with me, demon.” Jack stiffened and turned away to avoid the suggestion between them. “I will not let you use my honor this way.”

“It is a little late for false indignation now, samurai.”

“I am not the one who walks in a false body,” Jack returned curtly.

“Ah?” The demon perked at that and he leaned forward. “What is that supposed to mean, samurai? Do…” his eyes positively gleamed, “do you wish to see my true form?”

“No!” Jack shut his eyes and clenched his fists. “I want…” He opened his eyes again, stalled when he and Aku were suddenly very close. “I want none of this.” He finished softly, belatedly aware that their conversation might be overheard. “You would only betray me.”

“I would and I will,” Aku replied. He smiled unabashed and withdrew from Jack’s personal space. “You would die for Ikra.”

“Ikra was an illusion,” the samurai retorted, all benevolence gone. “She was just a lie.”

“How is this lie different?” Aku cocked his head as he sat down on his mattress. They stared at each other across the gulf between their beds.

“I will not serve a lie.”

“You will not love a lie.” The demon smiled his crocodile grin. “Does that mean you will serve the truth?”

Jack’s angry expression deepened. “I should have let you die.”

“But you did not.” 

“No,” Jack admitted and released a great sigh. “And I live with the consequences every day.”

“Bah! A mortal’s life is defined by weakness, why must you despair over yours so completely? It is pathetic. Are all heroes like you?” The demon looked at Jack square in the eye. “Was your father?”

“Do not speak ill of my family.” Jack rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Of all the insults I will tolerate, that is not one of them.”

“So you will simply wander this world praying that your useless father will provide meaning to a life lead so hopelessly out of context?” Aku didn’t smile. He didn’t have to. “That is a pitiful existence, samurai. You live off the charity of the dead.”

“You wish to speak of the dead?” Jack was on his feet, furious and deafening. “My family suffered and died because of you. Their blood is on your hands.“

"And I feel nothing,” the demon said. “You envy that more than anything.” He did grin and cocked his head to give the samurai a sly glance out of the corner of his eye. “It is the one thing you will never be able to learn.”

Darkness steadily devoured the details of the room. Jack looked to the fire and saw it had burned low and glowed beneath the ashes. He crossed the room and prodded the ashes with the poker provided. When it was sufficiently roused, he took another few logs from the bundle he had purchased and threw them in. Aku approached from behind but he ignored his nemesis. He wasn’t ready. The faces of his mother and father still burned in his mind. His skin felt hot. His entire body was alight with shame.

“Leave me be,” he commanded.

Aku stepped into his personal space. Hands crept onto his shoulders.

“I said leave me be!” Jack spun around to shake off Aku’s grip, poker firmly in hand. “I will not be your toy.”

“And what are you going to do with that, samurai?” The wizard gestured to the poker. “Your parents would…”

With a speed that astonished them both, Jack’s free hand clutched Aku’s throat and brought them close. “Do not even say it,” he snarled quietly. “Do not dare.”

Had Aku been human, he surely would have choked. Instead the demon met the ultimatum with a terrifying smile. “What will you do, samurai?”

They regarded each other in that stance for several weighty minutes. Jack opened his mouth to say something but the words lodged in his throat. He had no other recourse. Everything and everyone he had known and loved was gone. There was only one constant left. And even Aku was slipping from his grip.

That frightened him. His entire life had been defined by separation. By accident of birth, by fate, by necessity. He didn’t want to be alone in a future without his people or the creature that destroyed them. It would destroy him.

“Hate you,” he said eventually. He gazed at the ceiling and the demon saw firelight reflect off of unshed tears. “What other choice am I left with?”

“You do not hate me. Not for this.” Aku laughed low in his throat and it reverberated through the walls. “I have been what I have always been. You are the one who has changed.”

Jack didn’t respond.

Aku reached up and coaxed the fingers around his throat to ease. There was no resistance. He smiled knowingly and closed the gap between them. “Just a few months ago, you would have never allowed me to come so close.” He ran his fingers up Jack’s shoulders, allowed the ghostly suggestion of claws to make the samurai squirm in discomfort. Both knew those hands had slain greater creatures. “You should be flattered. It is not often an unworthy human creature catches Aku’s attention.”

“You were defeated by such an unworthy human creature,” Jack parried.

Aku snarled and pressed his hands against the samurai’s shoulders. Neither of them flinched when blood began to slither down Jack’s skin.

“Such impudence.” Aku smiled reluctantly, pride stung. He released Jack’s shoulders but allowed himself to be pulled close. They stood face to face, breathing each other’s breath.

Jack sets his jaw. “One day I will destroy you.”

“We will see, samurai.”

Jack moved first, quick and commanding. His lips sealed over Aku’s before he could add a snide remark. It was a disconcerting jumble of pleasure, revulsion, and uncertainty. Jack had some experience in such things but he felt young and unsure again. Aku seemed to share his bewilderment. The demon possessed an almost limitless knowledge in harming the human body and nearly none in pleasuring it.

As always the sensation of something inhuman lurked just beneath Jack’s fingertips. The cutting knowledge what he touched was only a mask for something else.

It was awkward. Neither of them were submissive personalities but unexpected differences defied reason or previous experience, and they had only each other to turn for guidance. Only urgency pushed things forward. Jack closed his eyes and ran his hands down the demon’s body. Every texture, every curve was too perfect, so perfect he felt repulsed. But beneath that, something rippled under his fingertips. Something strange and alive and unbelievably real answered his touch, and demanded a response. The same hands that made him bleed clutched his back and kept him close. The same tongue that foretold his ruin licked his neck.

Jack forced Aku’s head back. His nemesis smiled wickedly at his own conquest and arched his back until they were but one creature. Questing hands discovered latches to the demon’s armor and without a guiding eye, began to unbuckle the first of many layers. The wizard tried to speak, but Jack kissed him again. As punishment, inhuman fingers tore his hair down around his shoulders. Jack pulled away and stared into Aku’s eyes just as mail fell to the floor.

"These things are illusions, samurai.“

"I know,” Jack reached for Aku’s leather vest. “But do not tell me you want to keep them on.”

The demon’s dark smile was answer enough. He never broke eye contact as the samurai’s rough fingers slipped beneath his clothing and gently pushed them off his shoulders. Neither flinched when Aku tore the white belt around Jack’s waist and all the final barriers fluttered around his ankles.

They stood there for a moment, staring at each other. Something extraordinary was going on. Jack looked down. Once that line was crossed there would be no redrawing it. He stared at his nemesis draped in his human illusion. Green eyes looked back. Such cold, curious green eyes.

Had Aku asked anything of him at that moment, he could not have refused. 

Then Aku reached out to him. And he did not refuse.

It was like dying. The same uncompromising surrender to power. Jack closed his eyes, but the myriad of sensations penetrated flesh and thought. Jack could feel primal flickers beneath his fingertips. He could feel an inhuman presence lap up his thoughts, permeate them; caught within the same rhythm, but too vast to be completely consumed.

Flashes of truth. Talons beneath his fingertips, deadly strength beneath submission, deadlier amusement. Aku, was not of the natural world. He felt no love, he felt no compassion, but if Jack closed his eyes, he could ignore the absolute sight of it. He could imagine supple flesh was just that and turn away from dark intellect working underneath him. Wanting him. Because wanting was destroying. 

Yet he wanted to see that darkness, too. Wanted to understand it. Know it. And some day, transform it.


End file.
